


Good Grades Berate My Reputation

by lia (londonfog_faery)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bisexual Remus Lupin, Dyslexia, Gay Sirius Black, M/M, Marauders, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), dyslexic sirius black, i don't know how to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:08:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23509669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/londonfog_faery/pseuds/lia
Summary: Remus may or may not watch his room mate a little bit too closely, he may or may not have noticed that Sirius happens to never read any books that they're assigned, and he also may or may not have noticed that even if sirius can explain the concept perfectly he always gets bad marks on his essay's. Remus also may or may not be hopelessly in love with him.Sirius may or may not have dyslexia.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 3
Kudos: 105





	Good Grades Berate My Reputation

**Author's Note:**

> i really don't like this one but i dont feel like orphaning it for some reason tbh.

Remus was in the common room sitting on the ground around the coffee table surrounded by his three best friends. He was proof reading James' essay and James was reading his. 

"You spelt epiphany wrong" Remus pointed out. "It's with a ph not an f"   
James nodded "thanks, also here you've got a comma splice, just by the way"   
They always tried to explain the general corrections, it helped a lot. During first year their writing was a thousand times worse, just in general. Having someone helping you was always good.   
"Peter you want me to check your's next?" James asked roughing up his hair.   
"That'd be great" Peter smiled passing his paper to James, as James passed his to Remus.  
"Sirius?" Remus asked placing James' paper down.  
Sirius paused for a second and glanced down at his paper. "It's alright, mines perfect anyways" He smirked.   
Remus cocked his eyebrow up with a 'seriously' face.   
"I'm kidding, I'm editing right now" He laughed. Sirius however, was not editing. He was still writing. It was confusing, and Professor Binns requested cursive, because apparently it was a dying art. Sirius looked at all the fancy loops and they made him want to cry. He didn't even want to try to read-over what he'd written so far. The loops were confusing, they always appeared to be in different places, and the letters liked to switch around more when they were all connecting. Sirius ended up trying to read over what he'd already written, he gave up after staring at 'date' for five minutes trying to figure out if he'd mis-wrote, or mis-read it. Weather he was reading it correctly or had written it correctly and was reading it wrong, he was seeing 'bate'. He inhaled and glanced back down at the page.

"No offence Pete, but your essay's kind of all over the place" James said awkwardly. "I mean here your talking about Abigail Hobbs, and here you're talking about wendelin the weird, but then here you're talking about the author of the crucible, this doesn't make any sense." James was definitely _trying_ to put it lightly.   
  
Sirius sighed, he was always kind of jealous, because he _wasn't_ just daft like Peter, he understood everything just find, and he knew what he wanted to write, but he just _couldn't_ do it. He wondered if maybe it was like that for everyone else and he just was really bad at writing. He told his mum about it when he was eight, and she slapped him and told him to stop being lazy and just read like a normal kid.   
  
"Then what _is_ the essay meant to be on?" Peter asked in a slightly defensive tone.  
"We're meant to be comparing the medieval reactions, Salem trials, and the modern stigmas around witches in the muggle community" Sirius shrugged. "It's not that hard Pete" He added running a hand through his hair, turning a couple of heads. "Mr. Binns always likes anecdotes, were you allowed around muggles as a kid Pete? Maybe just fuckin write about that. Sometimes I wonder if you ever stop to think, like do you _ever_ use your brain?" Sirius new he was being mean but it felt good. He couldn't help it that part of himself hated Peter for being so god damn thick. He knew it wasn't Peter's fault, it just felt unfair. Peter looked down awkwardly.  
"Sirius" James sighed in a motherly-warning voice.   
"I'm just saying" Sirius shrugged returning to his essay. 

Remus watched as Sirius furrowed his brow as he proofread. It was almost as if he'd written the title in Latin and realized he didn't even know the language. Remus could tell he was frustrated, he excessively bit his lip when he was frustrated. Maybe if Remus didn't sit with Lily in most of his classes he would've noticed that Sirius often got frustrated in class.   
  
"Everything good?" Remus asked as James went over to help Pete re-start his whole essay.  
"Yeah why?" Sirius asked sharply flipping his page away from Remus.  
"You look concerned" Remus added.  
"I don't get _concerned_ Moony, I've got a reputation to protect you know" Sirius smirked playfully.  
"Well you're studying right now that doesn't suit your little reputation does it?" Remus snickered.  
"I'm not studying, I'm finishing homework the night before it's due at ten o clock, that sounds like it suits my reputation." Sirius shrugged dramatically flipping his hair.  
"You do know it's eight and not ten right" Remus laughed.  
"Moony, you ruin all my fun" He whined.   
"You sure you don't want me to proofread your essay? I'm bored"   
"I'm sorry, but you're _bored_ and so you want to _proofread_ an essay? How are we friends?" Sirius laughed.

Remus and Sirius stayed by the fire as James and Peter kept working at his essay. Sirius tucked his into his bag so no prying eyes would notice any mistakes. Sirius was thinking about words alot, and that kind of hurt his head, the same way reading did. Sirius was feeling second-hand embarrassment for his past self remembering all the god damn times he'd misread things in class. One particularly bad one was in third year when he read 'organism' as 'orgasm' in herbology. He was actually given detention for that one because Professor Thornton was convinced he'd done it on purpose. His detention was writing lines, which was just fucking great, irony at it's best. 

The next morning the boys headed to classes and handed in their essays.   
  
"Light reading on our next unit as I grade your work" Professor Binns smiled as all the students sat into their seats.  
Remus noted a small look of disappointment flash over Sirius' face. Was he really looking forwards to another droning session courtesy of Professor Binns?   
  


Sirius opened the textbook to the page listed on the bored and stared at it. He intended to just look blankly at the page for the rest of the hour. Remus noticed that his eyes didn't move along the page, and he didn't flip pages at all. James assumed he did this out of lack of enthusiasm to learn. Peter didn't notice.   
  
"How do you think you did on your essay?" Lily asked in a whisper after she finished reading the assigned pages.  
"Pretty good, James barely found grammar mistakes so thats good" Remus smiled.  
Lily scoffed "I'm sorry but, _James_ proofreads your work? You've got to be kidding"   
"He's actually surprisingly good at it. We all proofread each others work though" He shrugged.  
"You're kidding, I wouldn't peg Sirius as the helpful kind" She laughed quietly.  
"Actually, he doesn't proofread" Remus said after thinking for a second. "He also has never let us proofread his work either-" Remus glanced over at Sirius who was still staring blankly at the first page.   
"He's probably off playing with his hair" She added with a small snicker. Remus kind of suspected that Lily was slightly invested in their friend group. She started to find the things that used to annoy her, amusing.   
"No he just sit's there" Remus replied. Which caused them both to laugh for unknown reasons.   
  
"Evans, Lupin" Binns warned without glancing up from the stack of papers. 

A couple of day's went by and Remus almost forgot about the whole Sirius doesn't read thing, until of course, they were walking down the hallway.   
  
McGonagall rounded the corner.   
"Sirius may I have a word?"   
He nodded looking up. Sirius although he would never admit it, loved Minnie. All the boys called her Minnie, to her face as well. James was convinced that he saw her a bit like a mother. He always protested playing pranks on her, and he struggled to lie to her, which was Sirius' strong suit, lying on the spot.   
"You may want to hear this alone" She added glancing at Remus. James and Peter were already in the dining hall, Sirius had waited for Remus who'd been in the shower. Sirius' heart skipped a beat, something bad had probably happened.   
"It's fine" Sirius mumbled. Remus glanced between the two not knowing weather to step back or not.  
"Are you sure Mr. Black?" Minnie asked again. Sirius nodded, his gray eyes clouded with possibilities of what she wanted to talk about.  
"Based off of recent academic performance you've been temporarily banned from the Gryffindor quidditch team" She looked just as disappointed as he did.   
"But- it has nothing to do with-" Sirius protested.  
"I know Mr. Black, but maybe you and your friends should focus more on your school work"   
"I-I have been-" Sirius was looking up at her with so much disappointment in his eyes.  
"You recently received a Dreadful on your History of Magic essay, Madam Hooch has made it clear that academics must come before quidditch"   
"I understand" He mumbled walking away.  
"Mr. Black-" She started but Sirius kept walking.

Remus caught up behind him.

"How did you get a dreadful Sirius, you _knew_ what you were talking about-"  
"Moons not right now please" Sirius replied with a small voice crack.   
"But you explained it to Peter, you understood-"  
"Yeah" Sirius replied sharply. "I understood it" he was snarling slightly "I can't fucking write, and I can't read either" He sighed sardonicism dripping off his tongue.   
"I've seen you read before Sirius-" Remus was genuinely just kind of confused.  
"Yeah whatever Remus" Sirius sighed slumping down at the table.   
  
Sirius only ever called Remus, Remus when he was very sad or angry. Remus was wracking his brain for answers. I mean there were all the times that Sirius wouldn't reply to James' notes. If he thought about it closely enough, he also never made notes in potion, and Slughorn had the neatest printing. Maybe he was, word-blind, what was the proper word for it, dyslexic. Lily would probably know more about it. It was 'discovered' by muggle doctors so Lily probably knew something. James wanted to talk to Lily, desperately, and Remus gave him a task, he didn't explain why, but James was willing.

"Lily, do you know anything about Dyslexia?" He asked sliding onto the couch.  
"Well not much, but yes? Why?" She asked almost sharply.  
"How would I be able to tell if I were, you know, dyslexic?" James chose not to specifically mention Sirius.  
Lily laughed "James, I've seen you reading for fun, you're not dyslexic" She finished with an eye roll.  
"But if I _were,_ like what are the, symptoms?" Lily looked slightly annoyed.  
"I don't know, like, you'd be just as clever, so not very, but you wouldn't be good at spelling, grammar, that kind of stuff. It would make it hard to write and read. Mostly hard to read. The words can like flip around, or move places, or appear as though they're moving on the page" She added.   
James nodded. "thanks"   
"Why'd you need to know?" Lily narrowed her eyes. "If this is for some weird prank-"  
"It's not" James smiled.  
"Seriously-"  
"It's for Remus" James shrugged.   
"Remus can't be dyslexic-"  
"We know" James replied waving.

James reported back to Remus recalling all of the things she said, and un-necessary detail about the way she smelled, and the way she pronounced each word. Oh, and also _she said my name with out distain **or** a mocking tone, this is an absolute win_. 

"Sirius?" Remus asked softly during their next editing-session.  
"What?" Sirius smiled looking up from his sheet.   
"Can I help you?" he asked tentatively.   
Sirius rolled his eyes. "If you think I'm stupid because of-"  
"I don't, I just wanted to know if you needed help with anything" Remus replied non-chalantly.  
"um, how do you spell occlumency?" He whispered quietly.   
"o c c l u m e n c y" Remus smiled.   
"How do you just _know_ that" Sirius muttered under his breath.   
"It's in the notes, right there" Remus pointed at the sheet of hand written notes. Then it hit him, Sirius probably couldn't _read_ the notes. It was swirly cursive with extra flounces and it was earnestly hard for Remus to decipher some of the word's. It was like doctor printing.   
"oh, I forgot about the notes" Sirius whispered. "thanks" he smiled despite knowing it wouldn't help him at all. He just wanted Remus off his case.  
"I know it won't help" Remus replied.  
"What do you mean?" Sirius asked quickly. If Remus knew he _actually_ couldn't read he was fucked. At least last time he admitted it, it sounded like a joke.   
"Are you dyslexic?" Remus asked.  
"I don't know what that is, so no" Sirius replied staring at the notes.   
"The words don't make sense on the page, like they move around, or flip around, the order changes, it makes it hard to read and write" Remus explained in the least-patronizing voice he could find.  
Sirius just went silent. "I don't need your help Remus, I'm not thick" He replied.  
"Actually Sirius, if you can't read what the board says no wonder-"  
"I know how to read" Sirius said at what was slightly above talking level. James and Peter glanced up and there were some awkward giggles from around the common room. Sirius shut his eyes slightly grabbing his bag and heading up to the dormitory.   
  
"What'd you do?" James asked.  
"nothing" Remus sighed in response.   
  


"Sirius" Remus mumbled from the doorway.   
"What" Sirius' voice came from his four-poster. The curtains were closed. Remus cautiously pulled one back.   
"I didn't mean it like that-"  
"No it's fine" Sirius' eyes were glazed over, it looked like he'd been crying. He had been crying, tears of frustration. The kind you get in math class when you've stared at the same problem for thirty two minutes with no avail. "You're right, I can't fucking read. You got me" He grinned a scary and un-sincere grin. "I'm just as thick as Pete, if not worse" He laughed. "In fact I got a fucking dreadful on an essay on a topic I've known about since I was six years old, I'm so god damn dumb, that the highest mark i've ever gotten is an Acceptable. And Remus I haven't set foot in the library without one of you guys before, and I have never read a book for fun, because even though it's in printing it still doesn't fucking make sense, and the reason I didn't take ancient runes with you guys was because I took one look at the cover of the book and practically fucking cried." Sirius had the tendency of blowing up like this every once in a while. It was a bad habit.  
"Sirius, that's not what I was trying to say-" Remus started.  
"You didn't have to say it, I already know it, couldn't write it down for you though" He laughed. Sirius laughed no matter what emotion he was feeling, it was kind of scary to be perfectly frank.   
"Sirius, it doesn't mean you're thick it's dysle-"  
"Yeah Re, to be perfectly honest I know it's called dyslexia or whatever, but the wonderful missus black made sure I knew it's an excuse, it's just a fancy word for stupid that I wouldn't be able to read." He smiled bitterly.  
"I read up on it" Remus started. This received a self-pitying laugh from Sirius. "and, it just means your brain is wired differently, you know you're just as smart as James and I" He shrugged. "I'm sure if you tell Minnie-"  
"I'm _not_ telling Minnie" Sirius started. "Hi Minnie, I'm here to tell you, that I want to be back on the quidditch team, you see, you kicked me off because my grades are crappy, but they're only crappy because I can't fucking read, that would go over great Rem" He rolled his eyes.  
"Sirius, I know that your parent's made sure that you always felt inadequate, but you're not, your smart and your-"   
"Can you tell her for me" Sirius whispered looking down.  
"What?" Remus was lost.  
"Can you tell her _for_ me, I don't want to disappoint her" he mumbled under his breath.   
"Just come with me, she's _not_ going to be disappointed" Remus explained.   
  
Sirius' stomach was twisting with slightly ashamed butterflies as they sat in Prf. McGonagalls office.

"Boys" She smiled sitting down. "What are you doing here?"   
"It's about Sirius' grades" Remus started.   
"I'm sorry boy's, but I can't let-"  
"We're not here to beg for anything, I promise" Remus smiled interrupting her slightly. He didn't want Sirius over thinking it and then making up a stupid reason that they'd come.   
"We think that" Remus started. Sirius kicked his leg. " _I_ think that Sirius is" Sirius kicked him "may be, dyslexic"   
Minerva furrowed her brow "Wouldn't you have known earlier Mr. Black?" She asked cocking an eyebrow up.  
"Yeah" Sirius said giving a pointed look at Remus. Remus shot an unimpressed one back. "Okay, I mean, I knew that the words kind, of like, I don't know they were" his voice trailed off slightly. He glanced at Remus and grabbed his a bit. It was a habit, it started with Boggarts in third year. The wrist wasn't intimate enough to be weird, but it was good enough to feel safe.   
"Well, I can't read" He mumbled. "I know how to read, like I can sometimes read, but the words are sometimes hard to, decipher I guess, especially hand written stuff" That was a slight nod towards Walburga Black’s hand written letters. She often switched from English to French just to spite him in the rare chance he even attempted to read it. Sirius knew he wouldn’t want to anyways because they’d probably all be about how much of a disappointment he was. Which to be honest, he found kind of funny, they should know this already he lives to disappoint them. He looked back up and mumbled "I doubt theres anything you can do but-"  
"Can you try to read this?" She asked lightly placing a small piece of paper with a sentence written out on it. 

Sirius' lip quavered slightly. He looked visibly frustrated again. A lump was forming in the back of his throat threatening to make him cry, as if this wasn't humiliating enough already. "To, tie, no sorry" He mumbled "to tiptoe, oh, to tiptoe on broken glass" he mumbled quietly. It was a common idiom he didn’t need to read the rest of it he could infer it easily. He was looking down. "sorry- I- I swear I can normally read easier than that-" He whispered.  
"Here" Minerva handed him a quill. "I'm afraid theres nothing we can do for you reading wise, but this will help with writing, get rid of backwards letters, and what not"   
"You can't use these in exams though-" Sirius started "So I should practice with what I'll have-"   
"No, _you_ can use it in exams. I can pull some strings and have you back for next weeks game" She added. "We didn't stand a chance against slytherin without you" She added. "Thank god" Minnie sighed. She was overly invested in quidditch.  
Sirius grinned "thanks Minnie" his usual cocky self was coming back as he ran his hand through his hair, a sure sign of confidence.   
  


"Thanks Moony" Sirius smiled. He only then realized he was still clutching Remus' wrist. When he noticed, it caused him to blush.  
"Anytime, handsome" Remus teased as he ran his hand through his hair again.  
"oh? So you admit it, I'm. handsome" Sirius smirked.  
Remus rolled his eyes. "Yeah sure whatever you want"  
They entered the boys dorm. "So, you think I'm pretty" Sirius smirked  
"Fuck offffff" Remus whined.  
"Am I pretty enough to do this?" Sirius smirked leaning and kissing him. "Fuck, sorry, nope, I, someone teach me obliviate-"  
"I'm bi, it's fine" Remus smirked.  
"Do you, like, _like_ me?" Sirius whispered between kisses.  
"I mean, yes? Do you-"  
Sirius nodded. "I'm gay" He replied.  
  
"What, the fuck" James mumbled from the doorway. Sirius and Remus bolted off of eachother. 

"It's not what-"  
"IT _better fucking not be"_ James glared. "I swear to god, if you've been dating and you didn't tell me first, I'm going to cry myself to sleep-"   
"We're not dating, we just" Sirius coughed awkwardly. "I-"   
"I get it, apparently I'm not good enough for you to share everything with" James slumped onto Sirius' bed. Peter hung awkwardly in the doorway.   
"Get off" Sirius whined, pushing James who was slumped on top of him.   
"Not until you promise that if you ever fucking date someone I have to be the first to know" James glared playfully.  
"James you can't know I'm dating them before they know" Sirius laughed.  
"Im sure you'll make it work" James replied rolling off of Sirius. "This totally isn't super awkward. You guys better not make this super awkward-"  
"You're the _only_ awkward one here" Sirius replied.  
"You guys are both really scary, and so I will be hibrenating until whatever this is, has ended" Remus gestured towards James and Sirius who were a tangled mess of person and pillow. He shut his curtains.   
"SIRI LOVES YOU"  
"Shut the fuck up James"

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you -sO- much for reading.
> 
> anyways, i'm so sorry you read this  
> have a lovely night  
> its 1:41 am holy fuck.


End file.
